The first legislation aimed at regulating residential programs for troubled teens was introduced on Thursday in the House and the Senate. The bill would crack down on hundreds of programs housing thousands of teens, many of which use punishing “tough love” regimes found to include physical, sexual and emotional abuse.

The Stop Child Abuse in Residential Programs for Teens Act of 2011 was sponsored in the House by Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) and in the Senate by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa). A previous version of the bill passed the House twice, but was never introduced in the Senate (at the time, the relevant Senate committee was focused on President Obama’s health care legislation).

In an order issued Friday, Associate District Judge Robert Davis decided to suspend the final four years of the sentence for Patricia M. Spottedcrow, stating she has “done better in the structure of the Department of Corrections than she had during her adult years in the community.”

Spottedcrow, 26, received the sentence last October after selling the marijuana to a police informant in December 2009 and January 2010. Her mother, Delita Starr, 51, was also charged.

Their stories were publicized in a Tulsa World series earlier this year about Oklahoma’s high female incarceration rate.

In blind guilty pleas before a judge, Spottedcrow received prison time and her mother received a 30-year suspended sentence. Neither had prior criminal convictions.

Oklahoma City attorney Josh Welch, who represents Spottedcrow, said the punishment does not fit the crime.

“We are pleased Judge Davis recognized her sentence needed to be modified, but we are simply not pleased with the amount of time that was modified,” Welch said. “I don’t walk away from this feeling good even with four years knocked down, and I’m not going to give up until she is released.”

KEARNEY — A Ravenna man is serving a nine-month jail sentence for sexually assaulting his stepdaughter.

The man was also placed on three years probation on a second charge of felony attempted incest of the same girl. The man’s name is being withheld to protect the victim’s identify.

Under his probation, the man must complete intensive outpatient counseling, attend Alcoholic’s Anonymous/Narcotics Anonymous three times a week and obtain his GED. Judge John Icenogle sentenced the man last week in Buffalo County District Court.

The man pleaded no contest to the charges in July. Both incidents happened in October 2009 in Ravenna and involved the same girl.

Court records say the girl told her mother about the abuse, which occurred when the girl asked her stepfather for permission to do anything or go anywhere.